Ballet Palm Beach Launches Anka Fund
PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL – BALLET PALM BEACH (BPB) today announced that esteemed patron Ms. Anka Palitz has inaugurated the first-ever fund to seed support for the company’s professional dancers throughout their careers. BPB’s Founder and Artistic Director Colleen Smith said: “We are so grateful to Anka for her generosity to and advocacy for BPB over the years. On January 31st, we look forward to celebrating Anka at our annual gala event, of which she is the Honorary Chair.”
After her own successful career at Revlon and later as owner of Decart Designs in New York, Ms. Palitz herself transitioned to a new career, now spanning several decades as an active dance aficionado and cultural philanthropist. She has devoted her life to manifesting her passion for theatrical dance by helping to sustain dance companies such as American Ballet Theatre, as well as by developing programs to promote the health and education of young dancers as they train to become professionals. She has also sponsored individual professional dancers through their transitions to post-performing careers. Since moving to the Palm Beaches, Anka’s focus shifted to include several local arts organizations. For dance, she chose Ballet Palm Beach. Ten years ago she founded and sponsored, and then in 2019 was honored by, the glamorous Heart & Soul benefit for Career Transitions for Dancers, a program of The Actors Fund.
Ballet Palm Beach, Palm Beach County’s only extant, home-grown professional ballet company founded by Ms. Smith in 2001, is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving the art of classical ballet, cultivating new visions in choreography, positively influencing the young through the discipline of dance, and enriching the community through this universal art form. Every year BPB produces main stage ballets as well as outreach productions for audiences in various local venues as well as abroad.
The gala event, “Swept Away Soirée,” honoring Anka Palitz will take place in The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach, on Friday, January 31st beginning at 6pm. Tickets may be purchased for $200 online at www.balletpalmbeach.org or by calling BPB at (561) 630-8235.
Photo (c) Steven Caras, all rights reserved.